Jun 5, 2014

Musi-O-Tunya - Give Love To Your Children

Finally! The legendary Zamrock band’s second album and two rare
7” tracks. Give Love To Your Children follows Now-Again’s first foray
into the Zamrock genre, guitarist, vocalist and songwriter Rikki
Ililonga and Musi-O-Tuyna’s Dark Sunrise, which compiled Musi-O-Tunya’s
Pathe East Africa 7″ singles, their first album Wings of Africa and
Ililonga’s first two solo albums, released under his own name: Zambia
and Sunshine Love.

Dark Sunrise hadn’t even entered production when we became aware
of Musi-O-Tunya’s post-Ililonga trajectory, and its uniqueness in the
Zamrock landscape. It is the corollary to Ililonga’s mature solo
offerings: Give Love To Your Children is teeming with energy and
tension, hazily affected by copious drug use, and recorded quickly,
before its members parted ways for good. And now, its often sad story
can be told, and its incredible music can be heard, thanks to the
participation of Ililonga, Chengala and Barnes, who color the creation
and release of Give Love To Your Children in an extensive set of liner
notes and interviews included in the album’s booklet. Give Love
To Your Children is a marvelous, thrilling, charging beast of a thing
that has to be stared at in the face so as to be understood. This
album’s grooves hold the last, sustained shouts from one of the first –
and greatest – Zamrock ensembles: Musi-O-Tunya exploded at the height of
the Zamrock movement with this burst of fuzz guitar, chunky basslines,
funk and Zambian folk rhythms, choral chants and compelling lead vocals.
They never recorded together again. soundcolourvibration.com

The legendary Zambian band's compilation captures the energy, excitement
and unpredictability of Zamrock at the peak of its 1970s glory.

"Give love to your children / like the sun gives strength to the
soil / the moon gives fear to the night / and the stars lead the way for
the blind / and the wind gives life to the leaves. / Give love to your
children."

These majestic opening lines offer a powerful taste of the holistic, even cosmic, span of Give Love To Your Children by the legendary Zambian band Musi-O-Tunya.

The recently re-released compilation brings together songs recorded between 1972 and 1976, in the heyday of the Zamrock, a psychedelic genre that emerged amidst the economic troubles and social tensions of mid-70s Zambia.

Many
people credit Musi-O-Tunya and their renowned front man Rikki Llilonga
with creating the flamboyant musical style, but this album was their
second after Llilonga left the band. The remaining line-up, however, was
still more than enough to spark that Zamrock magic with Wayne Barnes on
guitars, band leader Derek Mbao on bass and vocals, Brian Chengala on
drums alongside Aliki Kunda and Jasper Lungu on congas, and all backed
up by a bold brass section.

Even with its wide scope, Give Love To Your Children is a
collision of worlds. The cover is a sign of this, made up of a
cross-section of interwoven colourised photographs, showing the eclectic
mien of traditional Zambian music alongside the hip image of 1970s
Zamrock.

The unpredictable soundscape of the album similarly
juxtaposes a myriad of diverse influences. Musi-O-Tunya were clearly
inspired by the rock sounds of 1970s Europe and the US, but this is only
a fraction of the psychedelic textures and sounds. Fuzzy, frenzied
solos from guitarist Wayne Barnes whip across songs as Derek Mbao's
earthy bass restlessly moves the groove forwards and round. Brian
Chengala’s percussion meanwhile brilliantly pushes the beat and jams
through an entire arc of feeling, building and dropping the intensity
while – above all − maintaining a completely danceable afrobeat or
kalindula. The brass section too is glorious, triumphantly leading the
band at times. Together, as Musi-O-Tunya, the band has sheer groove.

Throughout Give Love To Your Children,
Musi-O-Tunya explore a huge number of ideas, whether through the
recurring joyful, sprawling guitar solos or the sombre – in meaning, if
not in tone − lyrics of ‘Starving Child’ ("Someday everything will be
alright / Everything’s going to be alright").
The result is still a
consistent, powerful record. So often cover-all statements like ‘great
energy’ are readily applied to albums but if there was ever a time to
use the cliché, it is here. This is a band intimately in tune with one
another and the result is a full-to-bursting sound.

However, that is perhaps where the clichés should end. In fact, to some ears Give Love To Your Children
could be unpredictable and it's certainly complex. But this is arguably
to its strength, and it is the moments of sheer excess that are most
filled with personality and character. The album's lyrics also cover
typical Zamrock concerns and darker social and personal issues (the
profound ‘My Baby’ for example) but also break with that convention by
entering hazy, hallucinogenic territory too.
But this is what is
so compelling about Musi-O-Tunya: they are unafraid to experiment with
traditional ideas and spoken word. For example, there are whole sections
that are free from all traces of ‘modern’ instrumentation. ‘Bashi
Mwana’ is in this vein and is perhaps even a welcome break from the fuzz
and intensity of the previous tracks. Lyrically, songs are an even
balance between English, Bemba and Nyanja. ‘Katonga’ is one of the
album’s highlights, opening with a traditional call and answer and
accompanying trumpets, only to kick into to a trippy guitar solo and
slick afrobeat rhythms before turning again to a bright sung harmony.
You may have trouble keeping up, but this is an album not to be missed.

In the last few years a little-known movement of 70s rock music from the
African nation of Zambia has become one of the more satisfying
discoveries of the Internet age. Reissues of albums made by groups and
singers like Witch,
Amanaz, Paul Ngozi, and Chrissy "Zebby" Tembo have exposed this
peculiar strain of pysch-flavored rock, known as Zamrock, to new ears.
In 2011 the great Now-Again label released Dark Sunrise, a
deluxe two-CD package of music by a singer and guitarist named Rikki
Ililonga, widely regarded as the driving force behind the movement and
the guy who's helped chronicle its history by facilitating the surge of
reissues. Now-Again is back with a fantastic reissue of Give Love to Your Children
by Musi-O-Tunya, made after Ililonga left his backing behind to go
solo. The record displays a broader stylistic range than any of the
other Zamrock recordings I've heard, with the wild, post-Hendrix
psychedelic guitar solos surrounded, alternately, by deep funk grooves,
terse Afrobeat, traditional African percussion music, and R&B
balladry. The album's driving, fatback "Give Love to Your Children,"
with its timeless message of nurturing, is today's 12 O'Clock Track.
Check it out after the jump.

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